"Microsoft’s Aiding of Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians Exposes Company and its Leadership to Legal Liability" 2 December 2025

A coalition of international legal and advocacy rights groups – Abolitionist Law Center, Avaaz Foundation, European Legal Support Center, SOMO, Center for Constitutional Rights, Ekō, and GLAN (Global Legal Action Network) – notified Microsoft Corporation and its executive leadership of its potential legal liability for aiding and abetting atrocity crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinian population of Gaza.

Sent just days before the company’s Annual General Meeting, the letter outlines the intimate relationship between Microsoft and the Israeli military, and the significant role the company has played in advancing, and even accelerating, Israel’s genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people of Gaza. In doing so, Microsoft, its leadership, and its individual officers are exposing themselves to criminal and civil liability for serious violations of international and U.S. domestic law.

Big Tech companies providing technology to the Israeli military have been, and continue to be, integral in facilitating the unprecedented speed and scale of Israel’s crimes, recognized as the “world’s first AI-powered genocide.” As detailed in the legal and advocacy groups’ letter, powerful cloud storage and artificial intelligence tools, including from Microsoft, have allowed Israel to store surveillance and other data on nearly all Palestinians and use that stored data to develop “kill targets”—individuals and structures that Israel targets for strikes. Microsoft has been an active profiteer of Israel’s violence, with the company racing to provide tens of millions of dollars’ worth in increased services to the Israeli military in the weeks following Israel’s assault on Gaza. These efforts succeeded, and Israeli military usage of Microsoft technology skyrocketed as the genocide progressed...

...Despite widespread international recognition that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Microsoft continues to provide major services to dozens of units across the Israeli ground, air, and naval forces. Internal employee advocacy by No Azure for Apartheid, calling for an end to the company’s ties with the Israeli military, also continues to be suppressed by Microsoft. The company has fired dissenting workers as recently as August 2025...

...Microsoft’s knowing provision of services used to commit the gravest of atrocities opens it up to a broad spectrum of criminal and civil legal liability, both internationally and in the United States. In advance of Microsoft’s annual shareholder meeting on December 5, 2025, the letter urges Microsoft to immediately terminate all services illegally deployed by Israel, work with stakeholders to identify other Microsoft contributions to human rights violations, and take measures to provide restitution to those harmed...